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The Early Printed Illustrations of Dante's "Commedia" provides the first systematic overview of the earliest illustrated editions of Dante's poem, stretching from 1481 through 1596, and features over 230 illustrations. Developing a series of interdisciplinary methods for studying early printed book illustrations, Matthew Collins explores the visual sources for the first illustrated editions of the Commedia, their narrative qualities, and their influence on Renaissance readers. He traces the visual genealogies that link these images to each other and to renderings of the poem in other media, including illuminated manuscripts and drawings, such as those by Sandro Botticelli. Collins additionally delves into a group of cartographically oriented renderings of Dante's afterlife, interpreting them in the context of the Age of Exploration. He addresses the utilitarian aspect of the illustrations as well by revealing the multidimensional role that these images played for Renaissance readers, particularly emphasizing their pedagogical and mnemonic uses. Of value to numerous disciplines, The Early Printed Illustrations of Dante's "Commedia" fills a gap in Dante studies and will inspire similar investigations into the visual representation of other literary works in the age of early print.
List of contents
Introduction: Images and Genealogies at the Margins of Renaissance Cultural Historiography
1. From Manuscript to Print: Broken Links and Bigger Pictures
2. From Print to Manuscript: Ideology and Pedagogy in the Hands of Copyists
3. From Drawing to Print (1): The Botticelli Questions
4. From Drawing to Print (2): The Forgotten Morgan Dante Drawings
5. Dante in the Age of Exploration: Meetings of Fact, Fiction, and Cartography
6. Approaches to Visual Narrative: A Taxonomy
7. Early Readership, Marginalia, and Mnemonics
Conclusion: The Work of Book Art in the Age of Early Print
About the author
By Matthew Collins
